>I'm using a Powerbook G4...mine will actually download the updates, it just won't install them.

I just ran into this problem. after having the Design Premium installed and completely updated I had to remove and reinstall. Some corruption in my user account stopped the install. A fresh install of the OS and migrating my settings over caused the same issue.

A fresh OS install then installing the Creative Suite everything updated as it should. Some of the updates were a bit slow.

If you don't need Leopard don't install it. You are much better of with Tiger. I'm using a G5 with Tiger.

I was struggling if this issue is a hardware or software problem or some weird mix of the two. I took my new MacPro in to the Apple Store (San Luis Obispo) and left it for 24 hours of testing last Saturday and it came up clean with no errors. I tried another erase install of the OS, clean CS3 install and again tried using the root manual update approach with limited results and multiple hangs. Finally, I called Apple and through some effort, and a few more grey hairs for both parties, convinced them to replace the computer.

I received the new MacPro today, installed and updated the same Adobe software no issues flawlessly on the first pass. What ever it is, it is not detected by Apple Store hardware test capability.

The original problem with the Adobe Updater is still not resolved. Our install of CS3 works fine under Tiger and will update, but the exact same package installed in Leopard will not update. Further, when installed in Leopard, CS3 creates a "Utilidades de Adobe" folder in Utilities, not "Adobe Utilities". 100% repeatable. Any ideas welcomed.

I'm having the same problem with the updater under Tiger (10.4.11) It hangs on my laptop (PBG4) and my Mini at exactly the same place, Adobe Air update of Flash. I just installed CS3 last week. Given that those who have problems (those I've read) haven't yet been able to resolve them, can I just ignore this update?

EDIT: After realizing that I had been attempting to install via the internet, I manually downloaded the files, but only the InDesign update would run. Illustrator immediately gave me an error, Acrobat couldn't find an upgradeable version, and Bridge would not launch at all.

EDIT 2: It seems I was trying to install 8.1.1 over 8.0.0 but it seems I need to install 8.1 first then 8.1.1, and now I see an 8.1.2.

I'm going to shut up and read the readme before I ask any more questions of the forum. Sorry.

Here is a piece of additional information that I should have posted last go around. The replacement MacPro I received had two 500Gigbyte disks installed as opposed to the one 1Terabyte drive that was in the original machine. Maybe the 1Tbyte drive was the problem for me?

my fix on a mac, adobe cs3 production premium:
- downloaded the cs3 files about more than 500MB

- at the prompt selected install

2 hours later it hung on Color STI (something something)

1. force quit Adobe Software Update
2. at the next window you'll get a message which states the install was incomplete what would you like to do select one:
- software install was incomplete stop and install rest of applications? -- yes
- I don't remember the second choice
3. the install should continued
4. the update completed

btw, the force quit dialog said that the Adobe Software Update was not responding but it clearly was by looking at the progress bar advancing to end.

ran the update one last time and it found one file

downloaded and installed it, all is updated

total download and install was about 2 an a half hours but that is because I went to the kitchen to make an apricot and peanut butter sandwich before checking the installation process

Dollars to doughnuts the updater is dog slow because some smart guy decided Adobe could save some mullah on their bandwidth bill by providing the updates as patches rather than a larger, complete download that would execute orders of magnitude faster.

At the very least the updater should warn you that it will take _hours_ to patch your products.

I am the original poster, and I still see VERY often some that just won't finish, no matter what. Root, downloading, clean installs, etc... I left two machines, different companies, running the updater over night, still stuck at the same place after 12 hours...

How such a seemingly simple thing can be so broken is beyond me... *sigh*

>I am the original poster, and I still see VERY often some that just won't finish, no matter what. Root, downloading, clean installs, etc... I left two machines, different companies, running the updater over night, still stuck at the same place after 12 hours...

was wondering, did you ever force quit to invoke the window that gives the option to quit that portion of the install but complete the rest?

I've had an escellated open tech support case for this bug with Adobe Master Suite Collection CS3 for OSX 10.5 since March 2008.... and I've updated my support case as "still unresolved" for all of March, April, May, June, and now July. There are countless threads in these Adobe forums complaining about this bug and the long lists of things people have tried to do for months to resolve it, all to no avail.

Adobe tech support has quit calling me every month on my open case like they're supposed to, probably because all they ever did was call me to tell me it was still a known bug. No patching installer update from Adobe. Still just crashes, freezes, fails, or simply locks up, on patching update process.

Patching with the individual updaters is a waste of time, as one of them will always randomly lockup, crash, or corrupt your entire CS3 installation. I've wasted DAYS on those little separate installers. They look like they're going to work, then one will freeze up on you, then you know you get to start all over.

And finally, anyone who says to run the Updater as user Root is just cutting and pasting from someone who made that up -- the Updater will not run as user Root. Period. Try it!

Just to add to the chorus. It was hung on AIR for over an hour and I just stopped it. Then ran it again. It tried to run the AIR updater and it said it had been corrupted and then proceeded with the rest. Now it's on Flash Lite 3.

First thing to do is look at the permissions on the Adobe stuff (Command-I). On my machine it was some unknown user, which now that I've fixed it, had changed to the system user. I'm almost positive that was the main source of the problem.

Here's what ended up solving it for me. I did a Archive Install of my OS. I don't think this was necessary, because it still left the Adobe Apps in my Applications folder. But it did screw up my virus scanner, which I didn't reload until after I got CS3 completely working.

Here's the thing that seemed to work though. Adobe has a script which will completely blast old copies of CS. (NIce of them to let us all know) Anyway it's here: http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cs3clean.html

Make sure you Deactivate your programs before you do this, so you don't waste a license. Remember to say yes when it asks about removing the serial number. I don't know if that was necessary but I wanted to be safe.

Ok so after that, run the script. When it asks what level you want to run, choose level 4. This is undocumented, but it blasts absolutely everything. Make sure you back up your brushes and stuff somewhere. PDFs and your files seem to be safe though.

After that I reinstalled, and everything worked fine, although I had to let the updater run several times. I ended up updating each of the major apps by themselves.

I found this solution on Layer's Magazine's website. http://www.layersmagazine.com/cs3-hates-me.html

I was having the same problem after I got everything reloaded. I ended up having to reboot my machine, pick one or two updates, let them run, and then reboot again, until I finally got everything to install.

I was re-reading the message that started this thread, and I just wanted to add another bit of info on the Air and Device Central update business.

I was watching these update in the Activity Monitor while they were going through the process.

The main processes sometimes showed a "Not Responding" message, but when I was getting a successful install, there was always a subprocess or two which were active. So don't panic if one of the top processes look like they've crapped out. One of the sub-processes was OpenSSL, which kept popping up and then shutting down almost immediately.

Also please read the Layers Magazine article if you're going to follow my method to get the Updater working. They talked about it killing Lightroom albums and stuff. I didn't have any, but before doing anything this drastic, it's always a good idea to have a good backup.

I was hanging during the install of Flash 3 Update for Device Central. I realized during this process that I didn't even know what it was. So I launched Device Central. The update immediately completed. I has tried letting it set there for hours and I repaired permissions. I didn't want to do a complete reinstall. I am assuming that launching Device Central before doing the updates would solve the problem. It did take a long time for Device Central to launch (device profiles and UI loading).

Hi, I had posted this on another thread, but wanted to add my 2 cents here. This is quite annoying.

G5, 10.4.11
Over the past few months, I've tried to use the updater and it always hangs at Start Meeting. Runs all night but doesn't get past about a third of the way. There must be a solution to this.

I have been having the same problem with CS3 Updater. It hangs, but worse than just hanging, it freezes all other applications on my system: MacPro OS X. The computer will remain hung for hours unless I force a cold boot (remove power and start up again) after which none of the Adobe CS3 Suite works correctly.

In order to re-start any CS3 application I must uninstall the entire CS3 suite, and reinstall the CS3 suite. But within hours or days the Updater reappears and the same thing happens.

After discussions with Adobe support I have been directed to use a utility called 'Clean' that ensures a completely clean start before reinstalling the CS3 suite. I have used this twice at each of the levels of cleaning, and on both occasions re-installed the entire CS3 suite. But each time I have the same problem again.

Today this has happened for the 5th time. Adobe support had me on music hold on the phone for over 10 minutes, even though I have a case number to type in after listening to their excessively long telephone voice menu, and then Adobe hung up the line on me. Apparently it is not possible to raise Adobe support.

Each time this happens I lose half a day of work. This has now become a economic problem for me. If this cannot be solved I may put this matter into the hands of a solicitor. Unfortunately, Adobe has become too big, a monopoly, and no longer cares about the havoc that the failures in its products are causing other people. Perhaps a court case will wake them up. contact me if you are interested to start a class action suite.

I phoned Adobe support, and after listening to the excessively long voice menu (asking which product and listing everything under the sun except the CS3 suite) I selected 'other' and entered my case number. I was then kept waiting for 40 minutes before Adobe hung up on me. 40 minutes of listening to ghastly music, and finally getting nowhere. This is not acceptable.

Adobe Updater continues to cause us headaches as well. I do NOT want it running for any of my users to whom I deploy, and yet it does. If anyone knows how to disable Adobe Updater completely, I would be much appreciative. (Yes, I'm aware of Adobe's official method of disabling it and mass-deploying CS3, but we use standard methods like NetRestore, which precludes using Adobe's custom XML.)

No, sorry, it's nowhere near that easy. CS3's self-repair puts the Updater back and runs it after doing so. Removing the self-repair version of the Updater from deep within Adobe Acrobat.app causes Acrobat to no longer launch, complaining that it needs reinstalling.

As usual, Adobe has no concept of how to design an application for Enterprise.

After getting the infuriating "hang" at installing Flash Lite for Device Central, simply locate Device Central, using Spotlight and launch it. Then fiddle around with a few of Device Central's buttons, doing ostensibly nothing, then quit it. A few minutes later, the Updater freeze comes to an end and the installation finishes. (I launched Device Central twice so I have no idea which one did the trick). But it actually worked. Now, of course, comes the task of finding a valid causal connection for this anomaly.

This happened to me a few times so I repaired permissions, restarted and tried again. It appeared to stall again in the usual spot about 7/8 through the install so I thought I'd just surf for solutions while it was sitting there and it magically finished after about a half hour sitting in the same spot. Who knows.

OK, so I was bitten by this when I tried to install CS3 on my brand new MacBook Pro. Most of the updates installed - after much waiting - but the lllustrator 13.0.1 patch just hung time after time. After many uninstall/reinstalls, and trying just about every trick found here on the forum and elsewhere on the Intertubes, I started to troubleshoot it myself.

Soon I found evidences that pointed towards a "bspatch" process, and after learning about what that is I started to suspect that the Adobe updater is using a version of bspatch that is not compatible with Snow Leopard, Intel Macs, or the combination thereof. So I replaced the bspatch provided by Adobe (found deep inside their updater application) with the bspatch already installed in MacOS and tried to apply the update once more.

Lo and behold! Never before had I seen an Adobe installation work so fast!! Almost the same speed as any other installation I've seen!

Inspired by the success with the 13.0.1 update, I did the same thing with the 13.0.2 update, and is now a very happy camper. (Well, as happy as can be when Ilustrator crashes immediately after start one time out of three...)

Same issue with one of my systems and the Device Central 'fix' resolved the issue. I basically just launched Device Central, mucked with some of the settings, quit the program, and continued (it was still running) the Adobe Updater installation. It loaded in seconds!

Launching Acrobat after a clean install often gives a message that Photoshop or some other CS component needs to be run first. So, it appears that the Suite does need to be 'initialized.' Perhaps, Adobe Updater needs that, as well. It would be nice if it also gave you a heads up!